One Step At A Time
by The Genius Mage
Summary: Roxas never looks before rushing into something. How does Namine solve this? Dance lessons! RoxasxNamine.


One Step at a Time

_~*Because if you don't you end up tripping! Wouldn't that be embarrassing?*~_

_How did this happen?_

To be honest, he didn't know. She was always telling him he jumped into things too fast, and now here he was hanging upside down in a tree by one leg, looking at the ground below him. Rolling away rapidly downhill was his skateboard, slowly but surely coming to a stop after hitting a fencepost.

Of course, he didn't even need to call her. She just seemed to _know_ when this stuff happened. As soon as he thought about her, there she was.

"Roxas." She chided gently, looking up at him with a half amused and half exasperated expression. Her blue eyes twinkled with laughter, but not the mocking kind. She reached up, yanking him down from the branches. He ended up landing heavily on his shoulder, but he had had _much _worse pain than this, and simply let it go. He got to his feet, smiling apologetically.

"Sorry, Namine."

"How'd that even happen?" She asked, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes.

"Er-Hayner wanted me to do a ten eighty degree spin…and I jumped off that ledge there and hit this tree?" He smiled again, and Namine giggled softly.

"Didn't I tell you before? Look before you leap!" She brushed down his clothes and said crossly, "Quite literally, in your case."

"Yeah, I know. What do I do about it?" Roxas fell back on his hands, blowing a leaf from his face with an irritated sigh. She sat beside him, drawing her legs to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

"Hmm. We need to do something to break this habit, something that requires you to actually _think_ before you do something." She smiled to take the sting from her words, and then continued. "What do you care about the most?"

"You, of course." He replied without hesitation.

"Then…let's do dance lessons!"

Roxas's eyes bugged out. "What? Huh? Where'd…that come from?"

Namine stood up, helping him to his feet. "I know how to dance already, but if you don't think about what steps to do next, you'll end up stepping on my foot." She paused, and then hauled him down the street, ignoring his protests.

"I might not want to wear sandals though." She added as an afterthought, once she had considered who she was about to dance with.

"'~***~'"

"Ouch." She muttered, stepping to the side and finishing the twirl without pause, despite the fact he had just stepped on her foot.

_Again._

"S-sorry!" Roxas mumbled, trying hard to remember what to do next.

_Um…step, step, twirl, step, twirl…step? Or was it twirl twice? Or-_

"Ouch!" Namine actually paused this time, briefly screwing her eyes shut before opening them again and smiling. "Once more."

"C'mon, please, I get it now." He spluttered, desperate to get her to stop _dancing,_ since he'd just end up hurting her again.

"Step, step, twirl, Roxas." She reminded him, pointedly ignoring his protests.

_Okay, okay. Step…step…twirl._

He stepped quickly to the side with Namine, elegantly twirling her before pausing again, his expression triumphant.

"Hey, I did it that time!"

"Excellent. See, Roxas? I knew you'd get it."

Unfortunately, he didn't really have it. He messed up a lot more that evening on Twilight Hill, but they came back for a full week.

Every single day of that week Roxas kept panicking, knowing he'd just hurt Namine again.

Every single _time_ he messed up, actually tripping once and bringing her down with him.

_Every single try_ he gave it his best shot, and on the eighth day he finally succeeded in the full dance routine without once stepping on her foot.

"Now do you understand?" She asked him, lying on her back beside him on the hill, looking at the stars that poked out past the twilight. "Life has to be taken one step at a time; you'll end up hurting yourself or others if you try to jump forward, or run too far, and end up messing up. You might even sprint into something that you could have foreseen if you slowed down to watch."

Roxas smiled at her, kissing her quickly before covering his face.

"Okay, I get it Namine. Just…no more dance lessons. _Especially_ since you have to be bruising pretty bad now."

"What? Why? You were getting so good, and you only stepped on my foot twenty times."

~***~

_**This little story was originally intended to be used in a different game category, but I decided to do it for Kingdom Hearts instead.**_

_**Why? I don't know. Review anyway.**_


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